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- Israel Vela
Spotlight on Israel Vela
Meet Israel Vela, Director of Student Services for the Kent School District. Velocity spoke with Vela about his Eastern Washington upbringing, his decision to attend CityU and his passion for helping Latino students in his school district. Here’s his story.
Born into a field worker family, Israel Vela spent his first years of life watching his parents pick citrus fruit and cotton in the Rio Grande Valley. At age 9, Vela joined them, traveling from Texas to Moses Lake, Wash. for the sugar beet harvest.
“My dad always stressed it (school) but it was about survival,” Vela remembers. “It wasn’t until we moved permanently to Moses Lake I thought school was going to be my route.”
After relocating, Vela still struggled with his English. Then he found the unconditional support of a favorite baseball coach who nurtured Vela’s athletic talent and helped him earn a college baseball scholarship. He soon earned his teaching degree at Central Washington University.
“Where I came across City University I was had already been teaching, I believe, ten years. I was looking forward to continuing higher education options for a Master’s degree,” says Vela, choosing CityU for its flexible learning model and staff development skill courses.
He went onto earn his CityU Master in Education (Educational Technology) degree in 1994 and Principal Certification in 1999.
Today, Vela’s multiple degrees help him daily in his job as Director of Special Services at the Kent School District. About 3,900 of the district’s 26,000 students are learning English as a second language and more than 111 languages are spoken at home, including Spanish, Punjabi and Russian. His roles include overseeing a refugee outreach program designed to help children register for school and working with a local Latino community/center.
“One of the biggest needs right now is in our Latino community…the needs are counseling, in particular, and domestic violence. My philosophy is to invest in our young adult (group). Teach them English at the same time they are learning a profession.”
May 17th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Thank you for featuring Israel in CityU’s Alumni newsletter Velocity. I had the pleasure to teach Mr. Vela and supervise his Educational Leadership Program internship during his pursuit of principal certification in 1997-99, During the past 10 years, Israel served as an exemplary principal at Meridian Elementary and is now completing his third year as Director of Student Services.
Mr. Vela has been a presenter and workshop leader in several Ed Leadership classes over the years. He has also been a keynote speaker and panel member in the Internship Reflective Seminars. He is a successful and satisfied CityU graduate and has recommended several colleagues and employees to consider CityU’s teacher and administrator preparation programs. And during the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with him in his role as mentor of Dr Molly Loiler’s program administrator internship in the Kent
School District and Student Services Department. His greatest source of pride is his wonderful wife and family. One of his most significant accomplishments has been the formation and implementation of the Kent School District’s and S. King County Refugee Center which serves new Asian, Latino, Eastern Europe, etc. children, workers and families